The Chase

The Escape (Peter)

I laid quietly on the table awaiting Ash to release me from my restraints. When she finally clicked a button, the cuffs that held me to the table popped apart. Still laying on the hard, metal table I slowly picked up my arm to reveal a red and blistered wrists. Putting my hand down upon the table, I began to sit up. Pushing up will all my might, with the help of Ash, I achieved a sitting position. I held my arms out before me and examined the new scars and cuts I had. Looking down at my leg I saw the weird stitch, and surprisingly I felt no pain. I leaned forwards and slid my hands across the bots that were embedded in my skin. They had a smooth metallic texture, but didn't move.
    Finally, curiosity getting the best of me, I brought my finger hesitantly to my chest. I ran my hand across the bloody indentions in my skin, and felt a sharp pain. This wound was still openly exposed to the air.
          "Ash, what did they do to me..." I choked, although I believe I already knew what it was. .
"They cut you up, Peter." Ash said with a touch of anger in her voice. "They cut their dirty little symbol into your untainted skin." Her voice wavered. Tears streamed down my face.
"They hurt me." I choked through sobs. "This can never be undone."
"I know. They are sick, disgusting, blithering idiots." Ash said. She held my face in her hands. "Peter you need to get a hold of yourself, because when they come for us there is no turning back. Can  you handle the pain enough to run?" Ash asked. I whimpered slightly.
    "I can't do this, Ash! They ripped me open like I was their toy. They said things-" I was cut off by a sharp pain against my cheek. Ash's hand had collided with my face with the perfect mixture of electric shock.
"Peter! I do not have the time for your..." Ash searched for the right word.     "Emotions! Get a hold of yourself or i'll drag you out of this prison myself! If I have to drag you then you'll slow me down! Then we'll both die! Do you want me, no, us to die Peter! Get on your feet this moment and lets run!" Ash grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. I nodded staring at her slightly frightened by her outburst.
"Let's go." I mumbled. Ash examined the nearby window.  Racing over to the low wooden chair, she broke off the leg by smashing it against the wall then slammed it into the glass. It took her a few tries. Ash is not the strongest person I thought. She did manage to break it.
I whipped my head around to the shattered door.
Foot steps.
Apparently, Ash had heard them too.
"Peter, get out the window!" Ash screamed. She didn't need to tell me twice. I jumped out the window without a second thought. I thought I would land on the ground. Instead I landed on something else.
Rusty metal screeched as my body slammed against it. My breath was halted for a moment, but I knew I had to get up. I groaned and rose to my knees and grabbed my arm and rolled it backwards twice, trying to get rid of the aching feeling. I popped my neck to the right, and then to the left, and finally looked up, and slowly I began to stand. I  wobbled back and forth trying to regain my balance. Looking up, still off balance from the ten foot drop, I saw Ash standing at the window hesitantly.
"Ash! Come on," I yelled up at her, "I'll catch you, it's okay! JUST JUMP!". With that Ash leapt from the window and within a few seconds she landed into my arms. Still weak from what I had just been through, I dropped her slightly. Ash's legs hit the ground, but she recovered far more quickly than I had. Once she had fully stood, I look over a rail that was to my right.
      It was a fire escape that happened to be about fifty feet off the ground.
"A fire escape?" I asked. "I thought you were afraid of heights?" She was looking down at the ground. Her face was pale and her eyes raced with terror.
"I am." Ash agreed her voice quavering. "It's only fifty feet? Yeah, it's not that much don't worry Peter."She sounded like she was talking to herself more than me.
I looked around to find a way down, but the rest of the escape lay on the ground in multiple pieces fifty feet below. The only way down was to climb down from the wall.
"I'll go first that way if you fall I can catch you again." I reassured and started to climb down the building. After descending a few feet, I glanced back upwards at Ash to find her trembling.
"Hey, it's o-" I bagan to say, but one of the bricks began to crumble and totally broke apart, that left be dangling in mid-air by one hand. Ash yelled something I didn't catch.
Using every last bit of my strength I reached up to grab a small brick that only my fingertips could latch onto. Breathing heavily, I repositioned my feet against the wall I began to climb downwards again. My hands took on each protruding brick one at a time. My feet followed as well in an elegant dance that could possibly lead to my death. After I was about ten feet from the bottom I looked back up at Ash and saw her violently shaking.
"Peter I can't do this!" She yelled her face extremely pale.
"Ash please...It's going to be okay." I chided
"I...I...CANT!" She sobbed.
"Ash please...I need you." She looked like she was going to say something else but decided against it after several shouts could be heard from the window ten feet above her. Ash reached out her trembling hand and grabbed onto a small brick.
"HURRY!" I yelled her because I could now make out shapes standing at the shattered window.
Ash then stuck her leg out and positioned it in a small crack in the brick wall. After I climbing down a few more feet, I glanced back up at Ash to see her doing surprisingly well, but two guards were hovering at the window deciding what to do.
"You're doing great!" I shouted at her. I looked down. "Only a few more feet!"
"Peter! I can't get ahold of this brick!" Ash panicked.
"Calm down grab the one of your left." I soothed.
"No Peter! There isn't a brick to grab!" She shouted. I could practically hear her panicked heartbeat from here. Ash clung to the wall, not daring to move an inch.
"Fall." I ordered. The shadows in the windows were now shouting at each other. It wouldn't be long before they started shooting or climbing down after us.
"What? No i'm not falling are you insane!" Ash screamed.
"Go after the girl!" I heard a guard shout.
"You can fall willingingly or I am going to make you fall!" I shouted. Bullets started to rain down on us. "Ash!"looked up at her. My eyes widened when I saw the small, round, silver shape of a bullet zooming towards her head.
"No!" I scream and held my hand out in the direction of Ash. Then suddenly the bullet seemed to stop in mid-air, unmoving, defying gravity.  Ash stared at the bullet wide eyed as the bullet stayed in its one position. The guards had seen  what had happened stopped shooting and stood terrified. Turning around, the guards raced back into the building deciding it was better to let the criminals go than suicide.
Ash finally got ahold of herself and began to climb down the building once again.
Goosebumps ran across my arms and it felt as if a thousand pounds had been resting upon my shoulders. I tried to close my hand but my fingers refused to move. It took all of my mental power and physical strength to slowly close my hand into a fist. That's when the bullet flew at the same speed before I had stopped it and it zoomed past where Ash had recently been. The bullet traveled a few more feet until it collided with another building and disappeared. I was extremely confused at what had happened and stood in awe, but shook it aside to focus on things more important than my confusion.
Ash.
I took this opportunity and  jumped upwards and snatched her leg. I pulled it causing her body to collide with mine, where we hit against the rough, barren ground.
Ash was safe.
It took me a moment to realize what had happened until Ash's body crashed upon mine. I looked into her terrified brown eyes and hugged her gently.
"Thank you..." I whispered into her ear again. Ash leaning out of the hug stood up and held out her hand. Reaching up I grabbed it as she helped me into a standing position. She then glanced upward at the fire escape.
"Never again." Ash sighed loudly.
"Don't jinx yourself." I laughed. Jinx yourself was something our parents used to say.
"Yeah whatever." She rolled her eyes at me. Her smiled told a different story. She was genuinely happy.  "Peter...how did you do that? I...I was on the wall and then... the bullet...how? I don't...understand." Ash questioned, her smile disappearing.
"I don't even really know. The bullet was headed for you and the thought of losing you sent me into overdrive. Then the bullet just stopped... and I was able to save you." I said warily as I ran my hand through my dirty brown hair as I avoided eye contact.
"I wouldn't doubt it. If I can have electricity shooting from my veins then you can stop objects in mid-air." Ash replied. "Do you realize how powerful that could be? You could mentally wound someone for doing that. Stop them from moving and then slowly tear them apart from the inside out. The L.L.S. is going to want you. They would either to kill you or make you join them."
"What about you?" I teased as we began to walk down the aged and cracked asphalt road. "Ash, you can shoot electricity from your hands." I continued as I gripped my side.
"We need to get you a shirt." Ash motioned towards me as she avoided my question.
"Well how do you suppose we do that?" I demanded and crossed my arms, deciding to move on from that conversation.
"Well...um. Where are we?" She asked spinning in a circle taking in the new and unusual surroundings.
Deciding to take a look around also, I examined the building to the side of me. They were huge! Five times bigger than the small shacks we called houses in Tara. The buildings stood tall and I had no clue how they were still standing. There were blast holes and pieces of shattered glass lay scattered at the base of the structure. Already, ivy and vines had inched its way around it build. Cracks covered the buildings. Not just one, all of them. Some of them even had gigantic chunks of its form laying in pieces on the deformed concrete sidewalk that used to house the turbulent rivers of life, so many years ago. These structures were only a shadow of what they had been the in the recent years before the war.  Benches and  fallen billboards were scattered around the streets of cracks and aged asphalt. Small animals could even be seen scurrying to and fro to overturned trashcans and leafless trees.
The city is as it was before, just devoid of the warmth and happiness that made it worthy of that term. It is a collection of buildings, roads laid like a carpet for a queen that will never come. Banners hang with slogans to be read only by the dust-laden wind. The only sound is the black bird that cries as if it can bring back the people who left tasty scraps, if only it calls loud enough. Against the wall of an old, ancient church is a bicycle, the chain dangling down and brushing the sidewalk slightly. Ahead is the clock tower, forever stuck at half past noon. If I stand still enough perhaps time is indeed frozen, perhaps it is just my bones and the steady thrum of my heart that don't realize it.